Setting Boundaries at Work: Yes, You Can Do That!

Boundaries. For some that word invokes a sense of control, accountability, and sanity. For others, just the mention of boundaries or setting boundaries can raise feelings of anxiety and guilt. Even folks who are pretty adept at keeping balance in their life, often find it a bit more difficult to set healthy limits when it comes to work. 

Work can have a different type of hold over choices and emotional responses because there is such a sense of obligation and in some cases anxiety over underperforming or disappointing superiors. 

This result is usually an unhealthy lack of boundaries in the workplace. What may seem like the only way to stay ahead and move up usually has the opposite effect, wrecking mental and physical health and ironically cutting into our real productivity.

Why Work Boundaries Matter

Work boundaries are crucial because they can have a significant impact on our mental health according to Dr. Sara Aghamohammadi, a physician and Chief Wellness Officer at University of California- Davis. “Maintaining professional boundaries between your work life and personal life can help you succeed. A healthy work-life balance also helps protect your mental health and can prevent burnout.”

In addition to preventing burnout, work boundaries can also lower stress, improve relationships at work and at home, and set a good example for others. 

If you want to succeed long term in your business or current position, you need to establish healthy boundaries today. Your future self will thank you. 

Which Boundaries to Set

If you haven’t had much experience with setting workplace boundaries, you might not even know where to start. Here are a few important boundaries to consider.

Physical boundaries- This can include how you want to physically be touched or not touched, taking solo lunches or breaks, maintaining ownership of personal belongings, and signalling when you do not want to be interrupted. 

Emotional boundaries- This type of boundaries helps you to protect your own emotions at work and can include things such as avoiding drama/gossip, proper delegation, avoiding low morale or negativity, and effectively communicating the best ways to get feedback. 

Mental boundaries- These help keep your mental energy high and stay focused. Mental boundaries can include keeping set work hours, sharing ways to make meetings and tasks more efficient, and setting notifications to reduce distractions during times you need to focus.

Here are several strategies that help make boundary setting at work easier. 

Set Priorities

Setting clear priorities for your work will help you identify where boundaries need to be established. When you can clearly see your priorities you’ll be able to set boundaries that support those priorities. This can have a huge impact on your productivity. 

Breakdown Your Workload

If you constantly feel that you’re running in a hundred different directions at once, you need to break down your workload. Once broken down into prioritized tasks, you can quickly set boundaries that ensure each area of your workload gets the time and attention it needs. 

Use Time Off

There is no grand prize for the employee that takes the least amount of time off. In fact, if you do not utilize your time off, the results are often burn out which can have long term effects on success and productivity. 

Communicate Effectively 

Ineffective communication leads to misunderstandings, unmet needs, inefficiency, and a host of other workplace challenges. It’s also impossible to set clear boundaries without clear communication. Those around you will need your boundaries to be clearly communicated. This helps you set limits, ask for help, delegate tasks, and give and receive feedback. 

Broadcast Your Schedule

Set a clear schedule and make sure everyone is aware of it. The more obvious this schedule is to everyone the more likely people are to respect it. 

Respect Others’ Boundaries

If you want your boundaries respected you need to be prepared to respect others’ as well. If you have not set a good example of respecting others’ boundaries, start correcting this immediately, and consider communicating with others your weakness in this area and how you are working on this skill set. 

Expect Confrontation

Instead of wishing confrontations away or shying away to avoid confrontation, you should instead expect and prepare for confrontation. Confrontations are inevitable in the workplace and the sooner you learn to maturely and professionally deal with them the better. Understand your priorities and boundaries going into a confrontation but also be ready to listen, receive feedback and compromise when appropriate. 

Most importantly, you may need to practice saying no if it doesn’t come naturally to you. 

Achieving long term success is dependent on the daily choices you are making right now. Evaluating your priorities and boundaries is one impactful action you can take today to invest in your success tomorrow. 

Learning which tasks should be moved off your plate and delegated out is one way to set healthy boundaries and increase your productivity. NTH Media helps Coweta business owners shoulder the responsibility of advertising and marketing. With digital, print, and social ad options, NTH has the services to meet your marketing goals and lighten the load. Contact us today to learn more.